This is the last post of my memoir.
I’ve been wondering since I started putting all of these posts up on my blog how I’d know it was time to officially end this story! But I realize now…I just know. And, it’s time.
If I were writing a fiction narrative, I would’ve wrapped things up with some kind of bow — not necessarily a bright pink one, but some other color to infer a hopeful or at least a tidy ending of sorts. I know I would’ve wanted to provide some type of closure for my novel readers so that when they finish reading the book, a sense of completeness can follow. I appreciate that in a good read, and so when I put a book I’ve just finished reading on a shelf, I feel…satisfied, I suppose.
But I can’t really do that for you with my real story.
I can, however, wrap things up in a way that I hope will at least bring things more full-circle.
After everything fell apart with the deal on my pilot and our wine club, and Lou and I started one more leg of imposing on our friends in the California Wine Country, I started picking up weekend jobs working as a wedding planner’s assistant. I started out working for one planner, and from there, I got weekend jobs with a few more planners — and then, after one year, I had started booking jobs with a total of eight different Wine Country wedding planners! It’s such interesting work, and I absolutely love every wedding planner I work for — which is probably why assisting has been my steady “side hustle” now for the past four years!
But the first planner who hired me has my heart — she’s beautiful, kind, supportive, and she never lets me forget that I’m a storyteller first, and a “wedding-day schlepper” second. And out of all of the weddings I do each season, the weddings I work for my original planner always mean the most to me. I guess that’s because this planner invites me into her client’s stories differently than any of my other wedding planners do. And, this planner always gives me the very important job of attending all of the wedding ceremonies.
There are a million moving parts when you’re pulling off a big Wine Country wedding, and even during the ceremony, there are things going on behind the scenes that can often make it seem like there simply isn’t enough time to pull it all together. But when all of that activity is going on, I’m the lady dressed in black, off to the side — usually crouched down near the feet of the musicians — watching the ceremony unfold so I can radio back the news to the planner that the couple is now “married.”
I love that job.
As soon as I whisper “Cue music” to the musicians, and then radio the “OK” back to the planner to send the bridal party down the aisle, all of the frenzied emotions seem to slow down, and within minutes, I can only feel the joyful buzz of the nervous bride and groom tingling on my skin. The invited guests always get so still after the bride finally makes her way down the aisle. From my hiding place, I watch as the bridal party frames the scene for me in flowing fabric and bouquets of flowers, and I can always physically feel everything that the bride and groom have been planning for the past year of their lives flowing into that exact moment.
I was working a really gorgeous wedding a few weeks ago for my favorite planner, and I got so caught up in the stillness during the ceremony. I was crunched down by the guitarist’s legs, but I could see the bride and groom at the most perfect angle, standing in front of the glorious trunk of a huge walnut tree with a canopy of leaves hovering over everyone like this leafy palm of love. There was a gentle breeze that floated into the swirl, and I watched a wispy tendril of the bride’s hair dance around her face.
It was the moment just before the couple exchanged their vows — which is always my favorite part. So I shifted from my knees to my bum to keep my legs from cramping up. As I watched the officiant hand the groom a folded piece of paper, I think I pretty much knew what he was about to promise to the lovely girl dressed in white.
He started out by telling her about the moment he knew he was falling in love — a lot of grooms start out with that detail in their vows. And from there, he worked his way into his thoughts and memories, and then his hopes and dreams for a family with her, and finally, he made his way down the page of his printed vows where he had listed all of the promises he was going to make to his beloved.
He promised to treasure her for all of her good traits and bad — even though she hardly had any “bad.”
He promised to take care of her, love her, and put up with all of the little things she does that make him crazy — but that also make her the perfect girl for him.
He promised to take time to see her, and to surprise her with flowers on a Tuesday “for no reason.”
He promised to do his dishes — not just put them in the sink — and, he also promised to not only fold but also put away his clean laundry every week, too.
And, he promised to make her laugh and to dry her tears if she ever had a reason to cry.
Like every couple I’ve witnessed getting married in my side hustle, I believe they are unique, and the love they share is special and one-of-a-kind — even though most of the vows I hear people exchange are pretty much the same every time. And even though I have my theories about why the vows are typically so similar, the more honest part of me knows that I really don’t know the real reason for anyone else. I can’t know…
But I have a hunch that before you ever say, “I do,” you want to believe you can make your betrothed certain promises, both large and small, and you believe with your whole heart that you’ll be able to keep all of those promises even if you have to work at it. And you already understand it’s the little things that make a marriage work — the tiny things that mix into the daily grind that requires most of the focus. So you put those things in your vows because you want to be on record that you’ll be the husband or the wife who does everything right for this person you love enough to tie yourself to forever.
I know that’s how I felt when I made my vows to Lou. I knew who I was marrying, and so making and believing in the promises we made to each other felt so right.
But all of these years later, Lou and I have lived through so many experiences that I never even considered as a possibility when we were standing in front of our minister…and God, and a gathering of our closest friends. But I remember exactly how I felt when I repeated the promises the minister presented to me: to love and to honor Lou, for richer or for poorer, in good times and bad, and in sickness and in health.
I remember feeling hopeful, optimistic, and as if my love for Lou could conquer all! And it was easy for me to make those promises to Lou when I was wearing that white dress, and the life I had right then was so shiny and full, and when my future seemed so clear to me.
I made those promises with an open heart, even though I had no idea that in a very short time, my life would literally go from richer to poorer, and there’d be less good times and more bad times between us, and, my husband would experience such an enduring season of sickness and so little health. If I could’ve glimpsed into my future, would I have made those promises so easily? And if Lou could’ve seen who I would become, would he have made his promises back to me?
I guess that’s what makes these promises at a wedding so profoundly weighty — you can’t know ahead of time if you have what it takes to keep all of your promises.
But while I was witnessing this couple — who I hardly know — make their promises to one another, I imagined trading places with them. With everything I know now about marriage, and all I’ve been through in my past, I pictured myself, standing opposite of Lou again. In my mind’s eye, it’s just the two of us, but I can feel God in the sunlight as it flickers through the leaves of the tree. I’m feeling the weight of our lives pressing in on my heart, and as my lungs fill up with air, I can feel myself drawing in all of the joy, but also the pain, the frustrations, the judgments, the self-loathing, the sadness, the heartache, and the exhaustion of our collective lives filling up my being.
And even though I wish my thoughts could only be giddy and light, the weight of the life Lou and I have built together feels real and important…and like it fully belongs to me. In my mind, I can see Lou looking directly into my eyes, and I know he’s really seeing me because after this life we’ve lived together, everything I am is in plain view. And I can see Lou, too. He’s a fighter and a man who never gives up, and knowing that about the person I’m married to is something I could’ve never known the way I do now on the very day I first said, “I promise.”
So now, I can’t promise him the things I thought I could the first time we were standing in this position, uniting our lives together on a beach.
But strangely, I know I can promise Lou so much more.
Watching a brand new couple walking down the aisle after their “first kiss” creates a visceral feeling of hope and potential in me every time. Everything is so festive and happy that it’s impossible for me to not get swooped up in the emotions. But the darker side of me can’t help but wonder how each couple will face the difficult times that they’ll never see coming. And whenever I have those thoughts, I know that I’m not really thinking about the bride and the groom — I’m always thinking about me.
You already know that I haven’t been a perfect wife, but I do believe you know that I’ve tried. And I’ll always keep trying to be a better wife, a better person…a better everything that I am as I walk through the rest of my life. But I’m no different now than I was back then in the fact that I can’t know what will happen next in my life and in my marriage. And…I can’t go back and undo anything in my past either, and so much of the writing of this memoir has been about sharing so I can finally let go of the past, and boldly move forward still knowing I can’t predict what lies ahead.
The freshness of a newly married couple always sparks something in me, and so when I was witnessing this wedding under the walnut tree, the thing I wanted the most for Lou and for me is that fresh and new beginning feeling to come over us again.
As I peck out the last few sentences of this book about my life and the life I share with Lou, I guess I can truthfully say that I feel grateful for all of it. Every ugly and strange and tricky and complicated thing we’ve experienced, as well as every gutting and revealing lesson I’ve learned the hard way. And even though I’m finished chronicling my past in the form of this memoir, The Imposition Tour will always stay with me — but I mostly hope that now that I’ve contained it all in this form…
